Be Our Guest Fridays {34}: Reading Activities for the Whole Family by The Orthodox Mama

February 12, 2016

When we become parents, we think we know everything, right? We’ve read all the parenting books. Then the doctor hands you this perfect baby and you are humbled to find that this little creature will be the one teaching you invaluable lessons.

In the case of loving to read, I actually learned it from my oldest son. I showed him these black and white flashcards that were supposed to stimulate his brain within hours of his birth. I read to him every night…and he turned into a voracious reader.

I couldn’t buy the child books or I’d go broke. We were in the library constantly. I encouraged his love of reading and was a bit jealous that he loved to read so much. Why can’t I be like him? Finally, 5 ago I found THE book that flipped the switch in me and I’ve been an insatiable reader ever since.

Now I’m a huge advocate of encouraging kids to read. So when Sarah from The Orthodox Mama wanted to share Reading Activities for the Whole Family, I was so excited to see what she had to say. There are so many fun ideas in this list, I think I’m going to start # 7 with my guys. We all sort of log our books read into Goodreads, but I sense a little more healthy reading competition is needed.

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Reading Activities for the Whole Family

I love to read. That may be a bit of an understatement. I read constantly, incessantly, and joyfully. As a child, I was the one who hid under the blankets with a flashlight so I could finish another chapter of Anne of Green Gables. I remember vacations by which book I was reading at the time. (Trip to the Black Hills? Emily’s Quest. Trip to Washington D.C.? The Lord of the Rings trilogy.)

As an adult, I became an English major just so that I could read a ton of great books and talk about them with really smart people. Then I became a middle school English teacher so I would be able to read for a living. It’s literally my job to help kids love to read. How cool is that?

Now I am also a parent, and I am doing all that I can to share my love (ok, my obsession) with reading with my three children. I want them to be not merely adequate readers or proficient readers. I want them to be voracious readers.

My guess is that you, as a parent, would also like your child to discover the joy of reading. So, how can we do it? By making reading part of our family culture. By making reading as natural as breathing in our households.

Here are a few Reading Activities for the Whole Family that can help build your family’s reading culture.

Pre-Literacy Activities

Just because your kids can’t read yet doesn’t mean you can’t encourage them to love reading! In addition to building a literacy-rich environment (teacher-talk for having TONS of books in your house!), you can try:

Alphabet Games

Look for letters everywhere. Point them out on signs, in newspapers, on cereal boxes. Help your children make the connection between these strange squiggles, letters, and words. These activities are fun both for little kids and older ones.

–Name Game: Kids find all of the letters of their names in signs while in the car.

–Alphabet Game: On road trips find words on signs that begin with each letter of the alphabet.

–I’m Going on a Picnic: One person starts the game and says, “I’m going on a picnic, and I’m going to bring apples (or apricots, or avocados, etc.).” The next person will bring a “b” word, and the game continues through the entire alphabet.

Story-Telling

Help your children love stories. Tell classic fairy tales. Talk about your childhood. Make up stories. Anything! Then, encourage them to tell you stories. You can give them a starter sentence (for example: There once was a princess who only wore the color green….) to help them get going. You can also ask your kids to retell stories. See if they can tell you “The Three Little Bears” before bedtime. What funny twists do they add?

Read-Alouds

Finally, set aside time each day for reading. Read great children’s literature to them—both picture books and chapter books. Young children can understand simple chapter books like The Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Boxcar Children long before they can read the books themselves.

Activities for All

If you have older children (or a mix of younger and older), try these activities:

Family Book Club

Choose a book to read and discuss as a family. You can each get your own copy, read it aloud together, or listen to it as an audiobook. Depending on how structured you would like to be, you could assign one person to be in charge of each chapter/ section. They can ask questions or find a related activity to do together. Books that have been made into movies are often nice to do, as you can all pop some popcorn, watch the movie, and have a great debate on how well the movie represented the book.

Listen to Audiobooks

Incorporate audiobooks into your daily lives. Perhaps you can all listen to an audiobook during lunch, while you’re preparing dinner, or in the car on the way to soccer practice. Again, having a shared reading experience can create meaningful conversations and inside jokes.

Institute Family Reading Time

In our house we have a daily family reading time—a time during which every member of the family is reading their own book. We think it is important for our kids to view us as readers. It can be easy as a parent to only read to our children. However, we should also read alongside our children so that they can see the value we place on reading in our own lives.

Family Reading Challenge

Creating a family challenge can add to the fun of reading. Perhaps you want to read all of the books by a certain author (such as Roald Dahl) together. Maybe you will read that year’s Caldecott or Newbery Award winner together each year. Perhaps you will track all of the books you read individually, and when your family total is over 50 you will celebrate with a special dinner. Be creative and have fun!

8. Book Talks

In my classroom, my students give “book talks”—short, informal talks about a book they have just finished reading. They give a brief teaser (no spoilers!) and share what they liked or didn’t like about the book. You can start doing this in your family—perhaps at the dinner table. Even the adults can get in on the fun (modifying a bit, perhaps, if the content isn’t appropriate for kids). Who knows, you just might get your next book recommendation from your middle schooler!

Road Trip to the Library

Add a trip to the library into your weekly or biweekly schedule. Try to get to know the librarians and ask them for their recommendations for yourself and your children. Each member of the family can bring their own library card as well as a bag for their own books. My six-year-old loves checking out his own books each week and may or may not be on some sort of mission to read every graphic novel in the kids’ section!

Blind Date with a Book

This activity takes a bit of planning from Mom and Dad, but it is totally worth it! Think about the books that you loved as a kid. Did you enjoy Charlotte’s Web, The Outsiders, or Where the Red Fern Grows? Collect several of these books (either from the library, your own home, or bookstores) and wrap them up as presents. Next, on an index card write one sentence with a very vague description of the book. For example, you could write, “A boy gets two dogs and changes his life” for Where the Red Fern Grows. Place the index card on the wrapped book. Finally, have each child look at the index cards and choose a book to read. Only then can they unwrap the book and look at the cover! You’ll enjoy reminiscing about the book while they are reading it and have great conversations when they are finished.

Encourage your child to love reading, and you will introduce them to new worlds. As George R.R. Martin said, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only once.”

Help your child live those lives and explore those worlds. Let them read.

About Be Our Guest Fridays!

Be Our Guest Fridays is a weekly feature where I feature guest posts by my favorite bloggers and authors. I started this feature as a fun way to give back to the blogging community. I am excited to share with you these creative, inspiring and knowledgeable bloggers and authors. If you’d like to be a guest blogger, leave me a comment on this post and I’ll be in touch.

I love the idea to have a family book club. I started reading to my kids as babies and the older two have always loved to read. I turned the youngest into a bookworm once I started staying home with him and we’d read together everyday snuggled under a blanket. It’s like a Pavlovian response now, when I tell him it’s time to read, he brings the blanket…that’s my boy! I attribute their love to learn with the fact that they love to read. I’m glad they turned into bookworms at a young age.

How do you encourage reading with your children or the young people in your life? Do you volunteer to read in school or get excited at school book fairs? What sorts of books do you like to read with your kids? What bookish activities do you like to do with them? Let Sarah and I know, we’d love to hear your thoughts!

I love these activities! I’m happy to say we’ve done or do some of these as a family. I also see a few I’d like to try. Reading is so important, I’m glad my family loves books just as much as I do.
Pinned this to our #MMBH board. Thanks for sharing!
XOXO

I always tell my kids and Superhubby that I’m happy anytime they read it doesn’t matter to me as much what they read as long as they do. Except for when the kids walk down the stairs reading, I do have to tell them to pay attention to what they’re doing!

We do MANY of these things as homeschoolers and I do have one very voracious reader and another who assures me he will be just as soon as he too can read chapter books like his brother. We’re always listening to stories!

We absolutely love books in our family! I started reading to my kids before they were born. We read books through out the day and every night before bed. Their teachers always comment on how much my kids love books. I am so happy!

That is wonderful! And, as a teacher, I know how amazing it is to have kids who love to read in my class. Every time I recommend a new book to them, I feel like I’m letting them in on a secret, or sharing treasure. 🙂

This is awesome. We’re a family of readers and have been forever. It reminds me of when my kids started crawling and sitting up we made the bottom shelf of our bookcase in the living room all kids books. You might be surprised by how often they were in sitting by their shelf with a book.

Great ideas! I am so bad about this because we have such varying reading levels and interests but the good thing is we do love books. Thanks for sharing, I’m definitely going to implement some of these into our family.

I hope that you do, Kendra! Having a variety of reading levels can definitely be a challenge, but even having a set family reading time can really show kids the value you place on reading. Happy reading!

Oh I can’t keep up with my oldest one, it’s totally not fair they have reading time in school. But he’s a much faster reader than I am too. I bet he’s been conditioning since he was young. Maybe in another ten years, I’ll read faster. I feel like the slowest book blogger, it takes me forever to finish a book these days! Thanks for stopping by Karina.

I have been an avid reader since I could keep a book open!! I love to engulf a book and then read it over and over again. Jett has a love for books too but I would like for it to become a passion for him to be an avid reader as well! I love these tips!

I’m so jealous you’ve always been an avid reader. If I had started reading at a younger age, I’d have read so many more books by now! My parents were always avid readers, I guess I’m just a late bloomer. Thanks for stopping by Skye, so glad your Jett loves to read. I think it has helped my 3 boys so much in school.

[…] I’m passionate about encouraging people to read and I am inspired by how Susan is helping young people to become better readers and writers in her volunteer work with Words Alive. If you want some tips on encouraging your family to read more, check out these Reading Activities for the Whole Family. […]